In the editorial Chronification to Maldynia [1] in Pain Med. 2011;993–5, naming issues are raised. Suggesting that the adjective, chronic , should, by itself , label pain or other symptom complexes as diseases rather than disorders or states is in the arena of medical or medical insurance bureaucracy. Or, it may be thought to be a way to officially elevate the medical status of pain in all of its expressions. Maldynia is being proposed as the replacement for syndromes of chronic pain. It has the flavor of an attempt, again, to serve as this era's escape from full and open discussion of a major feature of the suffering processes, which accompany so many of these chronic pain …

“Pain is always subjective.” “Many people report pain in the absence of tissue damage or any likely pathophysiological cause. Usually this happens for psychological reasons. If we take the subjective report, there is often no way to distinguish their experience from that of pain due to tissue damage. If they regard their experience as pain and it is reported in the same ways as pain caused by tissue damage, it should be accepted as pain”[1,2]. There is no disagreement about their being “many people” who suffer with and report pain in the absence of any demonstrable current pathophysiological cause. And, pain is a subjective complaint. This has been validated repeatedly by extensive diagnostic evaluations done by clinicians who work with patients who suffer chronic pain. A chronic intractable benign pain syndrome (CIBPS) has been defined and reported [3–7]. The suffering with this chronic pain is also congruent with the above quoted description of pain that is accepted by the International Association for the Study of Pain, and it is medically appropriate to refer to it as a …

O ur focus is on pain in language, and I will begin with working ideas about pain and language. Though gaining a fully reliable and inclusive definition of pain has been difficult, the one that is currently most widely used is an unpleasant sensory and emot ional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such It is clear that the definition of pain is a conceptual one in which central importance is given to mainly cortical brain events that mayor may not be associated with periphera l events related to tissue damage. This definition itself, as well as the added notes, clearly include the possibility of all attributes of time (present , past , and future) that are totally dependent on the cerebral cortex and its functions, collectively referred to as mind. Yes, a stimulus (information) comes to the brain or is supplied by the brain itself, and we become aware of the common and idiosyncratic unpleasantnesses that we call pain. Language includes the expression or communication of thoughts and feelings by means of vocal sounds, and combinations of such sounds or the written symbols for them, to which meaning is attributed. The particular form or manner of selecting and combining words is characteristic of a person, group, or professlon. These definitions for language are universally held and less subject to individual interpretation than that of pain. They do include the possibility that different meanings may be attributed to any such communication. Different cultures will use their languages to yield different meanings for what may have been thought of as universal concepts. Sullivan has written of language and pain after the views of the highly regarded 20th century western European philosopher, LudWig Wittgenstein. Pain as a topic appears prominently in his philosophical treatises,